


Sympathy 3000-21

by thefriendyouleftinthehallway



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bullying, Cliche, Cliche angst, Communication Failure, Excessive Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Just angst, Like, M/M, Self-Hatred, Snippets, Suicide Attempt, Time Skips, What Was I Thinking?, bad, binge eating and vomiting fellas, have you ever read angst on Wattpad because yeah, kind of like a weird AU sympathy for the devil piece, the ending is rushed and bittersweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 13:04:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21476473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefriendyouleftinthehallway/pseuds/thefriendyouleftinthehallway
Summary: One might be right to call this “angsty bullshit”. Basically, Jim is not a psychopath, he’s just a really messed up guy who feels all the feelings and battles with feeling like he doesn’t deserve love and feeling bad and selfish because despite this fact, he wants love anyway.It’s one big complicated mess and there’s applicable warnings for suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, self-hatred, bullying, mentions of self harm, binge eating and vomiting, and a few instances of excessive alcohol consumption. It’s… fucking terrible. Go ahead and read it if excessive cliche angst is your cup of tea. Otherwise go have some coffee or something and contemplate the uselessness of your pitiful existence with something better than this fanfiction.It’s not really clear whether Jim deserves the love and understanding he craves, although my bet is that he definitely does not. And yet you’re forced to feel sorry for him despite that, due to the nature of my story. Good luck, future readers, if you haven't wisely steered clear already. You’re going to need it.And if you are going to read, for the love of god check the tags.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	Sympathy 3000-21

**Author's Note:**

> There are several obvious AU elements here: in the timeline, in which events actually occur and which do not, and in characterisation and motivations. I know about these AU elements, and most of them are choices that I made for my narrative. Big ooft though. 
> 
> And obviously the title is from the song One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 by The Flaming Lips because I just happened to be listening to the album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots while writing this. It’s a good song, I’d recommend it. Actually the whole album is pretty sick honestly. I made the chapter names songs from it.

Certain feelings are complicated things, a pinpointed weakness. Inconvenient and often painful, such things are not to be favoured or indulged. Occasionally there is a need to be filled, that for a person whose perception can match one’s own, who can be stimulating and fulfilling intellectually and emotionally. 

But that feeling is dulled slightly in many. There are a special few, people’s whose perception is so strikingly different, that long so wholly for this fulfilment that it’s rather impressive. 

Jim has always known he was different. The world a flood of information from all directions, a constant buzz of input, enough to drive him insane. Well, obviously, seeing as he _ was _insane. How do they think that happened?

All he needed, all he needs, is someone to share it with. 

\---

Nobody ever showed up to Jimmy’s parties. It was odd, because he didn’t like them anyway, but when they neglected to show up, the nagging sense of isolation that he felt anyway would flare up. 

Of course, having an ordinary brother, there were frequently people from his school coming over to his house to play with his sibling. But with him, nobody was particularly interested in playing games. 

There was perhaps one time when he felt like he was included, like he was where he was supposed to be and he meant something to somebody. He was seven. His brother was nine. It was his brother’s birthday party. Five of his brother’s friends were gathered in the living room where they would be sleeping, but it was currently full of balloons. 

The balloons needed disposing of. Parents not paying attention, a room full of children got ahold of a great number of sharp objects, and it became a balloon-popping frenzy. With the knife in his hands, Jimmy hunted the balloons avidly, war-cry on his tongue each time he swung the blade. 

Miraculously, nobody came away with anything more than little cuts and bruises. 

But the next time Jimmy swung a knife that wildly, he came away as ‘Jim’, covered in his brother’s blood. 

\---

Psychopathy has always been a shining ideal. He tried his best to convince himself that he was that type of crazy. Moral insanity. But sometimes, when he’d been alone too long, or unalone too long, or had done something particularly cold, he realised… no, he remembered. Yes. He remembered that he wasn’t like that. He was full of ordinary feelings, all locked up inside a chest in his head. 

He would never be the shining ideal. And there was nothing he could do to force himself not to feel like this. Nothing he could do to try and make himself what he wanted to be. Jim was alone in the world with a mind so alive that it hurt, and all he needed was someone to share it with. 

\---

‘Moriarty’ was an important name, now. He had earned that importance, by being clever. It was nice to know that there were ways his cleverness would be appreciated, not teased and shamed. Then again, he had earned that importance by pretending to be a psychopath. 

His world would never appreciate the power of the name Moriarty if they knew that what it actually meant was a man who had cried himself to sleep in guilt every night for the first three years in the business, before he had begun to desensitise. A man who is exhausted constantly from all the effort it takes to suppress his empathy. A man who ritualistically eats himself into a shameful stupor every month to try and deal with all those disgusting, ordinary feelings. A man who ruminates self-pityingly on suicide in the early morning when he wakes up and can’t find sleep again, delicately cradling his gun. 

His world, his empire, would topple if they knew what they were really representing. His own people might even deem him unfit to rule them if they knew how weak, how pathetic he was. He may be clever. He may even have started to like his job, to an extent, his heart having become quite numb to the damage he inflicts. But never would he really be that type of strong: untouchable, effectively unfeeling. A mess of annoyance and amusement, no fury, no sadness, no self-hatred: that’s what he’d never have. 

It was driving him insane. He supposed, though, that it was good for business. Going from blank, to screaming, to apparent thoughtfulness, to blank, to screaming. That unsettled people. It made them frightened of him. Good for business. But really, what they were witnessing wasn’t a clever psychopath trying to manipulate them; it was a desperate man who was shattering on the inside. 

He had wanted to be loved and appreciated. What he had ended up with was to be feared and respected. Not quite what he’d been after. But then again, it was nobody’s fault but his own that he’d set out to put his mind to use and become the world’s greatest criminal mastermind. 

It had been John Watson’s blog, in the end, that alerted him to the existence of Sherlock Holmes. And he discovered that he fell in love with every apt word of the respectable doctor, more and more with the detective that was to be so awed and revered. Because for the first time in Jim’s life, there was somebody who could understand him. Who had the capacity to understand him. 

And thrillingly, Jim Moriarty was faced with the prospect of not being alone. Not being alone in the way he saw the world. From what he could deduce from Doctor Watson’s writings, not being alone in being all the more damaged for it. 

But here’s the rub; he wanted to capture Holmes’ attention. He wanted to capture Holmes’ awe, his respect, his fascination, his interest. And so, as always, Jim Moriarty proceeded the only way he knew how. Crime. 

\---

The detective is a good someone. Jim is a bad someone. But the detective is perfect. He might not see the world exactly like Jim, but he has the capacity. ‘Freak’ burns in his ears the same way. Input stabs his brain and his mind is ever alive, ever tired, like Jim. 

The problem being that the detective always refused to play the game. Jim just wanted to share, and the detective didn’t. 

Alone. Was he going to be alone forever? 

He could live with it, when he was younger, if nobody picked him. He didn’t want them to pick him, because the ordinary can’t understand the extraordinary, so it hardly mattered. 

He could live on, believing that along might come somebody, some day, who would pick him and who he would like to pick himself. And along comes the perfect candidate. 

But instead of Jim, they pick the ordinary man. They pick ordinary things and ordinary feelings. Watson? A friend, more important to him than a foe? 

And how is he supposed to go on? 

\---

Killing people had always left a foul taste on his tongue, but Jim knew he was really going insane when he realised just how much fun it was to make Holmes play his game. 

He’d always wanted to lose his humanity, but every time he did, feelings caught up, crashed back over him and made him want to die all over again. He wasn’t quite sure when he’d started to detach from things. But in the pursuit of Sherlock Holmes, it had begun to happen again. It had never been this intense before, though. No, he felt like he was sailing above the clouds, playing a game, a _ game _, like nothing really mattered. He felt like a child playing make-believe, and every time he laughed it was manic. 

His best henchmen were concerned for him. Or, he rather thought that they were concerned about him, just generally, not being sure what he might do. Because he’d always played insane, but this time it was too raw, too erratic, too wild in his desperate obsession with being understood by Sherlock Holmes. 

And then he began planning for the fall. And he watched them slowly figure out what he was going to do. Because at some point along the way, perhaps right from that time in the pool, it had become apparent that Holmes didn't want to play his game. The fall from hope to despair was colossal. The fall he owed Sherlock would be miniscule in comparison. But he still owed it. 

Because, heartbroken, it only made sense that if he couldn’t have Sherlock, nobody could. And if he couldn’t have some relief from this isolation, he would die. So then it was decided. They were going to die together. 

But it was going to be a while yet. 

\---

Kitty Riley. Now that was a puzzle. A journalist, angry at Sherlock, therefore easy to manipulate against him. A woman so eager to believe his lies of false woes and injustices at the hands of the young Holmes. 

Jim couldn’t lie and pretend he wasn’t upset that he had to lie to her. Because although she was a journalist, ruthless indeed, she was also kind. While, for the purposes of her job, she would listen carefully to all his lies about Sherlock… she was happy to listen to truths, too. Of course, he was still pretending to be Richard Brook. But even though it had nothing to do with her stories, she would patiently sit and listen with sympathy to tales of a lonely childhood, bitter parents, a sneering brother… children that kicked and punched, scratched and bit. Tears and shame. 

And after all her listening, he would stop talking, and she would hug him, show him affection like he had never received, and say “Oh, Richard,” in a way that made him flinch; he was lying to her. It was all a lie. But it wasn’t. He was more truthful to her than he was to _ anyone _. But still he told her lies for his own purposes. Because he’s a terrible person, isn’t he? 

When he got back from a late-night Tesco trip, he took one look at the door and he knew that Holmes and Watson were inside. He sighed, readying himself to act like he’d never acted before, and pushed all the regret to the back of his mind to deal with later. He ran a slightly shaky hand through his hair, and entered the house with a gentle exhale. 

“Darling, they didn’t have any ground coffee, so I just got normal…” he muttered, walking into the sitting room. 

And then he lifted his eyes, and they met with Sherlock’s. Jim was faking the terror, but it almost didn’t feel like it. Because these past weeks it had been so easy to slip into the skin of a scared and vulnerable, broken man. Too easy. 

“You said that they wouldn’t find me here. You said that I’d be safe here,” he said, his voice trembling, everything about his body language screaming fear and defensiveness. 

“You are safe, Richard. I’m a witness. He wouldn’t harm you in front of witnesses,” Kitty reassured, and even though Jim was supposed to be faking all of it, he really did feel like a terrified victim. And he couldn’t deny the gentle comfort of those reassurances from such a reassuring woman. 

Jim started to tune out as Kitty and Watson argued with one another. Blood was rushing in his ears, because it was all fake, all a lie. He was _ acting _. Then why did it all feel so real?

“Doctor Watson, I know you’re a good man,” Jim said, his voice shaking, _ and why did it feel so real _ ? John’s expression was livid, and suddenly a sense of very _ real _desperation washed over Jim, crashing into him like a wave as he trembled and backed himself into a corner. “Don’t, don’t h- don’t hurt me,” he begged. 

“No,” Watson shouted in furious confusion. “You are Moriarty!” He turned, shouted to Kitty, and then turned back to Jim. “We’ve met, remember? You were gonna blow me up!” 

And Jim felt momentarily ill, cowering, lightheaded with tears stinging in his eyes, not heavy enough to fall. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to feel more alert, and let out a desperate terrified whine. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he begged, and he meant it. “He paid me. I needed the work. I’m an actor. I was out of work.” _ Liar, liar. Why does it feel so real? _“ I’m sorry, okay?”

He begged in between the argument going in amongst the others in the room. He pleaded sorry, he lied. But Sherlock advanced, and Jim felt real, raw, visceral terror. “Don’t you touch me!” He screamed, Dublin accent becoming slightly thicker in his fear. “Don’t you lay a finger on me!” 

“Stop it!” Sherlock shouted, overwrought with confusion and frustration. “Stop it _ now _!” 

Jim was almost crying, because he wanted to. He wanted to stop it, but he was in too deep, in too deep and his stupid, human feelings were going haywire, and he felt like a raw nerve quivering in terror. Why did he do this? Why was it always this? This stupidity, this terrible, horrible, idiotic penchant for insanity, criminality, the _ game _. What was this? Why? He wanted to stop it, but he couldn’t, not now. 

“Don’t hurt me,” and god, he sounded like a child. _ Don’t hurt me _, he’d scream, and the bullies would keep on kicking, leaving bruises all over his smaller frame, bruises all over his mind. 

As he scrambled, slamming the door and diving out the window just like when he was hiding from his brother… his heart beats in his chest so hard he can hear it louder than anything in his ears. Louder than Sherlock’s “he’ll have backup,” which isn’t even true, because he’s just lying in a bush all alone and terrified and hurting. 

At least the game was running. Sherlock and John, leaving and going to make their next moves in the fairytale. All the things he’s done. The trial. The tea party. The little cabbie trick. Why is he so good at it? He hates that he’s good at it. 

He crawls back into Kitty’s apartment and tries to hold himself together. But as soon as she wraps her arms around him, he dissolves. The sobs are ugly, and he’s ashamed of them. _ If Moran could see you now _…

The crying trailed off, slowly, and he stood. He stood and pulled Kitty down the hall, into the kitchen. The kitchen without windows, with only one door. He pulled her in and he locked the door behind them. 

She was confused, and Jim had tears in his eyes. “Kitty,” he said. “You’ve been so nice to me.”

He sat down on the ground, and she knelt next to him. He could read her like a book, practically hear all the confused thoughts she was having. “But I’m a liar,” he confessed softly. 

She didn’t understand what he meant, but she put her hand on his shoulder. “Richard,” she said softly. 

“_ Don’t _,” he screeched suddenly, and she jumped backwards in surprise. There was danger in his tone when he next spoke. “Don’t call me that.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. 

“I am Jim Moriarty,” he said, staring into her eyes with his own teary ones, willing her to understand everything inside of him. But he knew she couldn’t, and he could tell exactly what she was going to say before she said it. 

“You don’t have to play his games, anymore,” she told him, and he mouthed along for fun, because he could, because he could always predict what she was going to say. “It’s over.”

He chuckled derangedly. “Play his games? I don’t play anyone’s games. Sherlock Holmes is playing _ my _ game.” As the words left his mouth, his heart broke a little. 

“Richard,” she started, but she didn’t get to continue. 

Jim sprang up from the floor, loomed over her and screamed, “I AM JIM MORIARTY.” 

“Jim?” She tried questioningly. “I don’t underst-”

“You don’t _ understand _ ,” he spat mockingly, cruelly. “It’s fairly simple,” his Irish drawl intensified. “I am the greatest criminal mastermind in the world, I am a _ liar _, and I am going to destroy Sherlock Holmes, because he doesn’t want to play with me.” The words that came out of his mouth were insane, cruel, cold, evil. But with every syllable he felt his heart breaking just a little more. 

“Moriarty,” she whispered. 

“That’s me,” he nodded, beaming psychotically. 

Kitty pulled herself shakily to her feet. He could tell that she was divided, half of her still thinking that she was standing with Richard Brook, a Richard Brook who was having a stress-induced psychotic episode. The other half of her knew that he was telling her the truth. 

“I didn't always lie to you, Kitty,” he said, and he could read that she was now almost fully convinced that he was Jim Moriarty. “And I’m sorry, but that was very stupid of me. Because now you know too much.”

She _ knew _what he was going to do. He pulled the kitchen knife from the holder behind him, and whipped it up to her throat in one deadly fast movement. But then he froze, he looked into her terrified eyes and he was reeling from the crushing wave of what could only be empathy. No. Dammit. 

He threw the knife across the room with a scream, and fell to his knees before her, feeling his throat tighten painfully and warm wetness flow down his cheeks. Bloody hell. She placed a hand on his shoulder. She still… she couldn’t still care about him?

“I won’t tell…” she whispered. She was… no, she couldn’t be. But it was as plain as day. She was sympathetic. “Please let me go.”

Oh. Nevermind. She just wants to live. Suddenly, something that he’d stretched too far snapped, and he stood up. She was clinging to him, but he shook her off, and locked her in the kitchen. 

Jim didn’t meet Moran’s eyes as the ex-soldier walked into the apartment. He tried to hide his flinch as he heard the gunshot from the next room. And he decided that on the rooftop, he wouldn’t wait for Sherlock to figure out that Jim could call the assassins off. He’d tell Sherlock himself, meaning there wouldn’t even be the slightest chance that he’d make it out alive. Engineer the situation so he’d have no other choice. He’d have to die. 

He couldn’t wait. 

Oh, Kitty Riley. Jim had been stupid, so stupid, and he was so, so sorry. But he couldn’t afford that liability. He waited for Moran to leave, and he screamed. He screamed, he cried, and he broke everything he could get his hands on. But he couldn’t fix what he’d done. Where had it _ really _ gone wrong? When he’d told her about his childhood for the first time? When he’d cried to her without acting for the first time? When he’d told her that he was Moriarty? When he’d locked her in the kitchen and called Sebastian?

He was a terrible person. He really was. It wasn’t just something he’d tell himself every waking moment of his life. It was _ true _. 

He sunk to the ground, exhausted. But that’s when he heard it. _ Screaming _. Kitty… what? Damn that Moran. Why was such an idiotic henchman so good at reading him. With cinematic timing, his phone beeped. 

_ You know you’d have regretted it. -SM _

God. He scrambled dizzily to the kitchen, swinging the door open, and there she was. She was bleeding. She’d been shot, but she was _ alive _. 

Hands shaking, he pressed 999 on his phone and swallowed as he requested the ambulance. They told him to stay on the line, but Kitty was distracting him. “Let me help you,” he said, and tried to apply pressure to the wound, but she jerked away. 

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, and tears sprung to his eyes again. 

“I’m sorry,” he promised. “I’m so, so sorry.” 

He shouted in fury when they wouldn’t let him follow in the ambulance, even though they probably should have at least taken him in to question how Kitty got shot in the first place. Shouldn’t the police be here? God, Moran had probably taken care of that. 

“Taxi!” He screamed at a nearby cab, and they pulled over. “Follow that _ fucking _ambulance,” Jim shouted, and the cabbie was surprisingly complicit. But he wasn’t going fast enough. “Faster,” he ordered, and they didn’t listen. 

“I can’t-”

“I don’t care about traffic violations,” Jim said coldly. “Go faster, or I will _ kill _you.”

The cabbie didn’t go faster, and Jim pulled a wad of cash out of his tattered jeans, holding it up to the barrier for the driver to see. “Faster,” he ordered, and this time the driver listened. 

Of course it would be St Bart’s. As he followed her stretcher into A&E, he wondered distantly if Sherlock Holmes was in this very building. He had never planned to be in a hospital waiting room at sunrise, Kitty Riley’s blood sticking his fingers together, pondering in that self-absorbed way about how much he hated himself. 

His phone beeped. _ Come and play. Bart’s Hospital rooftop. SH. _

Damnit. 

He really had hoped to manage to be Jim Moriarty, psychopath, criminal mastermind. He knew he looked like a madman when he scrambled up to the desk and asked the lady, “Kitty Riley. Came into A&E with a gunshot wound to the leg. Is she stable?” He was shouting. His hair was messy, his clothes were tattered, still Rich Brook’s, and stained red in places. There was literal blood on his hands, and his eyes were tired from crying, his throat was hoarse from screaming, and his whole body ached with exhaustion. 

“I can’t give out that sort of information,” the receptionist said, and Jim glanced around the empty corridor before pulling himself up and over the desk, wrapping his red hands around her throat and shaking her. 

“IS SHE STABLE?” He shouted, and then threw her back as he let go. 

“I don’t know,” the receptionist pleaded. “I can check, I can check.” She typed something on her computer, and nodded. “Yes, she’s fine. She’s in room-”

“Don’t tell me,” Jim asked. “Please, she doesn’t deserve that. Don’t tell me.”

He met one of his men in a broom closet, and was handed the gun and a jacket to hide it in. Jim knew the questions that were going through his henchman’s mind, even if the man didn’t ask them, didn’t speak, barely met his eyes. 

_ I’m waiting… JM _.

It took an embarrassing number of times to type out as he sat at the very edge of the rooftop, selecting the music to play ironically, fingers sticking to the clicking keyboard on his phone as the numbers and letters became obscured by the dry, flaking blood. 

He had hoped to be decked out in Westwood, immaculate and intimidating. Instead he was a mess, still dressed in Rich Brook’s clothing, dried blood on his hands, his shirt. Hair sticking up every which way, looking positively drained. 

The time it took for Sherlock Holmes to arrive clued Jim in that yes, Holmes had been in the building all this time. 

“Staying alive,” Jim referenced the music. “It’s so boring, isn’t it?” He paused the music frustratedly. “It’s just…” he held his hand out flat and moved it along, indicating a level journey. “Staying.” 

He sunk his face into his hands, trying to control himself. “All my life I’ve been searching for distractions.” _ Not distractions. Companionship. A like mind. _ “You were the best distraction, and I don’t even have you.” 

Jim quieted, looking back up at Sherlock. “Spose I’ve got to go back to playing with ordinary people, and it turns out you’re ordinary, just like all of them.”_ I wanted you to understand me. I wanted. I hoped. But you don’t, do you? _

He dropped his face into his hands and breathed deeply, hyper aware of Sherlock studying him. 

“The journalist,” Sherlock said. “You killed her.”

“Wrong,” Jim sing-songed, feeling light, numb, detached, ignoring the pain. He stood up, walking towards Sherlock, circling like a predator. 

“You had her killed. Why the blood? Does it turn out that Moriarty _ does _like to get his hands dirty?” Sherlock questioned. 

“_ No _ ,” Jim barked. “You’re wrong, Sherlock. You’re so wrong.” He could feel himself sneering, and he didn’t really care what message he was sending to the detective with his words, his actions. What mattered was that Sherlock was _ wrong _. He didn’t want to kill Kitty, he didn’t. 

He looked at Sherlock and knew that the detective didn’t understand that Jim hadn’t wanted to hurt Kitty. The detective didn’t know. 

They fell into a dialogue. Back and forth, villain and hero, arguing about evil plans on a rooftop. 

Sherlock thought he had it, thought he knew. Moriarty muttered, wobegone. Screamed, angry. All the while, Jim was hiding behind his face and hurting. 

“Those digits are meaningless. They’re utterly meaningless.” _ Just like this stupid game _. “Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach.” … “All it takes is some willing participants.” … “And pretty grim ones too.” 

The conversation went on and on, and Jim fell into its numb rhythm.

“Oh, just kill yourself. It’s a lot less effort.” Jim muttered the words wearily, and he believed every syllable. He watched Sherlock try to process, try to escape. “Go on,” Jim goaded toxically. “For me? Pleeeease?” He squeals. 

Sherlock grabbed him and swung him towards the edge of the roof suddenly. Jim wasn’t scared. He didn’t care anymore. His eyes presented a challenge. _ Do it _, they said, locked on Sherlock’s. 

“You’re insane,” Sherlock breathed. 

Jim blinked at him. “You’re just getting that now?” He asked, almost as if it were a joke. 

Sherlock pushed him further off the edge, and he flailed comically. But he wasn’t scared. He didn’t care. _ Throw me off _ , he thought. _ Go on. I wouldn’t mind. _“Okay, let me give you a little extra incentive. Your friends will die if you don’t.” 

“John,” Sherlock guessed immediately. 

“Not just John. Everyone.” Jim whispered the last word with a smile on his face. He wondered if Sherlock would throw him off now. He wouldn’t blame him. 

“Mrs Hudson.”

“Everyone,” Moriarty whispered gleefully, but Jim was already regretting this plan. Why was this what he was good at? Why this? 

“Lestrade.” 

“Three bullets; three gunmen; three victims. There’s no stopping them now.” And there wasn’t. Jim would be too dead to do so. He was almost a little disappointed when Sherlock pulled him back from the edge. “Unless my people see you jump.”

He watched Sherlock’s brain run at a million miles a minute. 

“You can have me arrested; you can torture me; you can do anything you like with me; but nothing’s gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die… unless…” 

“Unless I kill myself,” Sherlock said. “Complete your story. Die in disgrace.”

“That’s the point of this,” Jim said. _ You don’t play with me, you don’t play with anyone _ , something whispered in his mind. But he couldn’t deny how _ wrong _this felt. 

“Your death is the only thing that’s going to call off the killers,” Jim said as Sherlock stepped onto the ledge. “I’m certainly not going to do it.” _ There. He’ll call me out. I’ll have to die. _

“What did I miss?” Jim shouted, pretending to be angry when Sherlock laughs. 

“You’re not going to do it?” Sherlock asked. “So the killers can be called off, then?” 

“You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?” Jim laughed coldly, but he knew he was acting still. 

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “And so do you.”

He was right. Jim knew he was right. Sherlock just had to say it long enough, in the right way, the right number of times, and Jim would crumble and give in. 

“Sherlock, your big brother and all the King’s horses couldn’t make me do a thing I didn’t want to,” Jim said, and it’s true enough. Mycroft, the law, they couldn’t make Jim do anything. Sherlock on the other hand… 

“Yes, but I’m not my brother, remember? I am you – prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won’t do. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you.” Jim allowed himself a slight wince and Sherlock’s intensity. 

“Nah. You talk big. Nah. You’re ordinary. You’re ordinary – you’re on the side of the angels,” Jim said, because Sherlock didn’t know. Sherlock was ordinary; he didn’t know a thing about Jim, what the world was like from Jim’s eyes. He didn’t know this pain. 

“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one _ second _ that I am one of them,” Sherlock spat. 

And Jim looked at Sherlock again. Stared into his eyes, taking in every aspect of him, realising… Sherlock did know Jim’s pain. Sherlock didn’t know that Jim felt like this, but he knew what it felt like well enough. _ Does it hurt like this when they call you a freak _ ? Jim wondered. _ Does it hurt like this when you know that nobody could ever understand you _?

“No, you’re not,” Jim agreed. “I see. You’re not ordinary. No. You’re me. You’re me! Thank you! Sherlock Holmes.” He took Sherlock’s hand in his own, throat tight as he prepared to die. All of the sudden the gun in his pocket felt a hundred times heavier. “Thank you. Bless you. As long as I’m alive, you can save your friends; you’ve got a way out. Well, good luck with that.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened a split second before Jim pulled out the gun, and when he had expected a moment of white hot pain and then nothingness, instead he felt the gun being pulled from his grip. 

Sherlock examined it, finding that it was fully loaded in a matter of seconds, and pressed the tip against Jim’s head. “Call them off,” Sherlock demanded shakily. 

Jim laughed, feeling detached again, and pressed his head harder into the tip of the gun. “Do it,” he pleaded, and Sherlock stumbled back as if struck. 

“You actually want to die,” the detective said. “It wasn’t a ploy?” 

“Pretty stupid ploy,” Jim said. He stepped forward and guided Sherlock’s hand back up so the gun was against his head once more. “Do it.”

“No,” Sherlock said, stepping back. He pulled the magazine of bullets out of the gun and tossed the two in opposite directions. “Why? Why do you want to die?”

“Sherlock,” Jim said, disappointed. “Aren’t you bored? Haven’t you done things to stave off the boredom that you regretted? Haven’t you wished there was someone who could understand you? Maybe there is. But they don’t want to play.” 

“No…” Sherlock muttered, trying to figure it out. 

“Why do you care about them?” Jim asked, and he could feel his voice was tight; he was about to cry. “Why do you care about your ordinary friends? They don’t understand you. What’s so special about them?”

A slight realisation dawned on Sherlock’s face, and Jim ignored it, stepping up onto the ledge and holding out his hand. “Come on,” Jim said. “Together. You and me. The final problem. Hand in hand.”

Sherlock grabbed Jim’s hand, and pulled him down off the ledge. The detective stared at the criminal’s hands for a moment, and then spoke. “Why do you care about Kitty Riley?” 

Jim blinked. 

“Why do I care about John? Why do you care about Kitty Riley?” Sherlock continued. “Call. Them. Off.”

And just like that, Jim gave in. He pulled out his phone with shaking hands, and sent the message. _ It’s off. JM. _

Jim fell to his knees on the rooftop. He lowered his face into his hands and cried. Why did he cry so much? These days it felt like he was always crying. Sobs exploded from his lungs, tears tracked down his face and all he could think, all he could say was “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please. I’m sorry.” 

He almost jumped at the hand on his shoulder, looked up into Sherlock’s green eyes and felt even worse than he had with Kitty’s blood still sticky on his hands. 

“Come on,” Sherlock said. He pulled Jim to his feet and guided him through the building. “Let’s go home.” The detective's soft voice was using the same tone that one uses on a crying child, and Jim should feel humiliated, but instead he feels like he belongs. 

They’re leaving, but Jim stops when he sees red braids resting on a pillow, and he diverts their course into that room. He uses a pen and paper that sit on the bedside table to write a note. _ I’m so sorry _ , it reads. _ Don’t forgive me. I don’t deserve it _. 

\---

221B Baker Street. He’d been there a few times before. It was different when he was welcome. Except he wasn’t welcome. Not really. He’d like to think he’s welcome because they’re allowing him to be there. But really he’s just staying there because Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a clue what else to do with him. 

They had come to Baker Street from St Bart’s, and Sherlock was staring at Jim as Jim tried not to cry again. 

“Stop it,” Sherlock said. “Stop acting.”

“I’m not,” Jim said pleadingly. 

“And I’m the Queen of England,” Sherlock said, expressing his disbelief of Jim. “Stop it.”

“I can’t,” Jim said blankly, exhausted numbness taking over him. 

“Fine. Don’t stop. But tell me what that little game on the roof was all about? ‘Do it’. You didn’t _ really _want me to, did you? You knew I wouldn’t. How?” 

Jim smiled weakly. The fact that Sherlock was asking how Jim knew he wouldn’t do it (the answer to which was ‘I didn’t’) meant that Sherlock himself had been divided on whether or not to pull the trigger until the split second he decided not to. 

_ If Holmes is so determined that I play the villain _ … Jim thought helplessly, and pulled his tired face into a smirk. “How did I know? How did I know when you didn’t? How did I know you better than you did? I _ am _you, remember?” He somehow managed a laugh, but he felt sick to his stomach, and fought off a persistent nausea. 

Sherlock shoved Jim and stalked away, frustrated that he couldn’t understand what was going on. The great Sherlock Holmes didn’t see what was dancing in front of his own two eyes. _ I’m sorry. So sorry. Why can’t you believe me _. 

But he supposed he knew why. _ Sorry is as sorry does, Moriarty _ , he thought to himself quietly. _ And sorry isn’t doing much _. 

\---

Jim knew that Sherlock Holmes didn’t mean to be cruel. Sherlock Holmes didn’t know that Jim wasn’t simply a psychopath playing a game. When Jim woke fitfully from nightmares, Sherlock Holmes would scoff, roll his eyes. And it hurt. It hurt Jim to face the lack of empathy coming from the one person in the world that he had hoped so desperately would understand him. 

Even Watson (who disagreed with keeping Jim secretly in 221B) empathised to a degree. It was more like involuntary sympathy. And then Dr Watson would catch himself feeling sorry for Jim, and remind himself that he shouldn’t, and school himself back into a fiery dislike of the criminal. And that hurt, too. 

Neither of them meant to be cruel, not really. And cruelty is about intent, is it not? So then they weren’t being cruel. Whatever they were being, Jim was sure without a shadow of a doubt that he deserved it. 

He was, after all, a terrible person. A terrible person who did terrible things. Why did he do terrible things? Because they made him feel needed, accepted, valued in some way? Because he hoped that one day he might feel understood? 

A terrible person doing terrible things doesn’t deserve any of the things he wants, does he? 

He was such a pitiful stereotype. When he hid in the spare room cradling a tub of icecream and a spoon, crying and trying to make the feelings go away with food, Sherlock didn’t see him. But there was no point in hiding anything from Sherlock Holmes, because Sherlock Holmes figured it out. He figured it out, and he supposed that Jim had intended that he figure it out. Sherlock thought that Jim was pretending to be upset. 

Of course he felt disgusting afterwards. He always felt disgusting afterwards. And he was almost grateful that 221B kept a very ill-stocked kitchen, because if the pantry had been plentiful, he would have almost certainly kept the unfortunate habit of eating himself to sleep almost every day, and he didn't think he could handle feeling disgusting on top of everything else. 

The downfall of this, however, was that he started craving coping mechanisms less pleasant. The scars down his arm were invisible, now. A decade old at least, so much that they had faded and gone. They had never been deep, even when they had been fresh, and now they existed in memory rather than flesh. 

He didn’t want fresh ones. So he didn’t do it. 

Jim Moriarty never had a problem with alcohol. He drank, recreationally and without any issues that might suggest a dirty addiction. But Jim Moriarty always dealt with the kinds of alcohol that have a pleasant taste, that seem sophisticated, expensive and terribly in-character. 

Now he was dealing with the cheap stuff that tasted like gasoline, served no purpose other than to help teenagers get absolutely pissed, and made him feel sick.. He was on the kitchen floor at Baker Street, and Sherlock Holmes was observing him passively from his chair. 

When John Watson came home, he looked between the two and blinked. “What’s going on?” He asked. 

“_ The Napoleon of Crime _has evidently decided to drink himself to death,” Sherlock answered boredly. 

John made a start towards Jim, but Sherlock interrupted. “Stop.”

“Sherlock, you don’t even know-”

“You were going to take it away from him. Don’t. I want to see how far he’ll go for this game of his.”

“For God's sake, if we have to take Jim Moriary to the emergency room to get his stomach pumped, Sherlock,” John said. 

“Take it away then, if you think it necessary,” the detective said, though he sounded annoyed. 

Jim himself couldn’t quite think. Couldn’t quite comprehend the words of the people around him. He could do one thing, which was, more or less, the action of drinking. But apart from this his function was impared beyond sense. 

He spent the next 48 hours in bed, hiding from everything, and wishing very hopelessly for some kind of miracle: that Sherlock would believe him. Understand him. Accept that he wasn’t lying. 

\---

A week of it later, the three of them sat together, bored and quiet in the main room, Jim raised his eyes to the other occupants of the room and spoke, very quietly, scared any noise he made might serve to make the others more annoyed with him than they seemed to have been already. “I want to see Kitty,” he whispered. 

“Why?” Sherlock asked. “You don't really care about her. You asked your thug to shoot her in the wrong place, and you pretended to try to help her. You pretended to care at the hospital. Why do you want to see a woman you don’t care about?” 

“Because you’re wrong,” Jim said angrily. “And I want to see her. Where is she?” 

“If she’s not at hospital, she’ll be at home. Stupidly, seeing as you know where she lives. But she’d not that smart, is she?” Sherlock taunted. 

Jim stood abruptly, a shout of anger on his tongue, but he realised he didn’t have anything else to say. 

He ran from the flat hurriedly, as if he was expecting the detective and the doctor to make chase. But neither did, watching him go as if he was nothing, because they didn’t _ care _. 

He heard their imaginary laughter. He knew that it wasn’t real, but with his heart pounding in his ears he heard them laughing at him as he ran away. 

\---

Kitty didn’t want to see him. Kitty had been the one person who seemed to really care about him and his problems, and then he _ literally tried to kill her _, and now she didn’t want to see him. It was perfectly fair. In fact it was less than fair, she deserved to kill him for all he’d done. But it felt really unfair despite this. And he hated himself for that; he didn’t want to be to terrible as to find something feeling very unfair, when really it was as fair as it could ever be. 

He rationalises that something doesn’t have to be noble or selfless or sensical to hurt. Hurt is beyond those virtues. 

That doesn’t make him feel less insidious for it. 

He wants to keep trying to contact Kitty, but he decides that it would just seem like he was harassing her. He wants her to know that he’s sorry, and the best way he can think of to do that is to never contact her again. Repayment for all the trouble he’d caused her: she never has to speak to his sorry self again. 

\---

“I had a brother,” Jim said. 

Sherlock sat on the couch with his fingers steepled under his chin, and thus Jim entered the quiet room and interrupted the man’s thoughts as he began to speak. 

“I expect you killed him,” Sherlock replied to the statement in thinly veiled frustration, a childish casual tone used not to hide, but to sugar-coat annoyance. “You do seem very good at that.”

“Yeah,” Jim says, because he can’t think of any way else to answer Sherlock’s statement. But the criminal’s voice is raw and it crackles with grief. 

“Isn’t it exhausting? Crying constantly,” Sherlock says, opening his eyes and staring at Jim intensely, as if Jim the last piece of a puzzle that just won’t fit into place. 

“Yeah,” Jim answers, sitting down across from Sherlock. It’s about five in the morning. Not even Watson with all his lingering army training wakes up this early anymore. 

“Why on earth do you do it, then?” Sherlock asks. 

“Because I’m sad, pathetic… self-pitying… I can’t just switch it off like a tap,” Jim says quietly. 

“I’m inclined to believe you,” Sherlock says. “But Moriarty isn’t sad, pathetic, or self-pitying. Try again.”

“No,” Jim says. “No, Moriarty isn’t those things.” He sighs. “James, on the other hand, is all three.” 

“I was unaware that there was a distinction,” Sherlock muses sarcastically. 

“There isn’t,” Jim sighs. “Not really. But I compartmentalise for the sake of my sanity.”

Sherlock snorts. “Your _ sanity _. That’s quite the amusing concept, don’t you think?” 

“If you wake up from nightmares laughing,” Jim mutters. “I only wanted someone to understand me. For a while I thought I could get by with someone who_ pitied _me instead. And then I realised I didn’t deserve either. Funny, isn’t it? That I never cared what I really deserved until I was past the point of deserving nothing but hell.” 

“Oh, yes. Hilarious,” Sherlock says, and Jim can tell that he still doesn’t believe that Jim really feels pain at all. 

They sit in silence, and it is not companionable. It is tense and slimy. 

\---

“You said you had a brother,” Sherlock says. 

It’s the one time since Jim’s been here that Sherlock has actually been the one to engage with him first, unprompted.

He’s probably bored. 

“Yes,” Jim answers tightly. 

“What happened to him?” Sherlock asks. 

“Thought you had that one all worked out, Sherly,” Jim says, and while a couple of months ago he might have been able to sing-song it playfully, now it comes out dead and flat, like the soul has been drawn out of his words and now they’re lifeless. “I killed him.” 

“But you… you grieve,” Sherlock says. 

“It’s not so complicated, Sherlock,” Jim says. “Well done for finally figuring out that I’m having _ feelings _, by the way. I was wondering how long it would take you to work out that my heart hurts the same way as yours.” 

“It doesn’t,” Sherlock says. “But you do grieve for your brother. What happened to him?” 

“Life wasn’t fantastic,” Jim answers. “He was ordinary. He was a part of it. All that… badness.”

“You thought if you killed the last remnant of your old life, it would go away,” Sherlock breaths. “But it didn’t, did it. It haunts you all the same. And you _ regret _— no. You’re lying again.” 

“I’m not,” Jim says. “Honest to God.” 

“You really think that swearing by a fairy tale is going to—” Sherlock is cut off.

“Shut up,” Moriarty hisses. “Shut up. You don’t know anything, Sherlock Holmes. I may have spent my life acting, I may have been a liar. Richard Brook doesn’t exist, but James Moriarty has always been a pathetically lonely actor. Figures when I try being honest for once everyone thinks I’m lying still. Boy who cried wolf and all that. Can’t I just be a deeply flawed human being? Like the rest of us, if worse?” 

“No,” Sherlock answers. “You gave that right up the second you killed your first victim.” 

_ Jimmy _ , his brother had screamed at him. _ Jimmy, stop, stop, stop _. His blood had been soothingly warm. Jim has thrown up afterward, he’d felt sick, horrified that he’d done it. But it had been done and there was no taking it back now. 

Before Jim knows what’s happening, his fist is connecting with Sherlock’s face. 

Sherlock’s nose flows with blood, and Jim gets a black eye from the detective for his effort. 

It’s Moran who finds him in one of those greasy diners that are open 24/7. It’s two in the morning, and Jim feels disgusting because he’s already eaten enough that he’s thrown up in the dirty graffitied bathroom, and he keeps on eating anyway. As if maybe if he fills himself with food, there will be no room left for all the feelings. 

Well, there’s no room left at all, not even the food, and he throws up for the second time that night. He knows the staff are concerned, but the English aren’t sociable creatures. If he wants to do this, who are they to stop him. And do this he does. He eats again despite it. 

To the gunman’s credit, he doesn’t ask questions. He simply gets Jim to approve or reject different potential schemes and jobs to be conducted by his empire, and drives Jim back. 

To 221B. 

That night he wallows in the burning shame he felt upon entering the flat and watching Sherlock take one glance at him and deduce what he’d done. 

He cries himself to sleep like the self-pitying bastard he is, hating himself all the more for wanting someone to love him despite how little he deserves it. 

\---

Sherlock finds Jim in the bathroom. He’s completely submerged in the water in the bath, still clothed. But he isn’t moving. He isn’t even breathing. 

He doesn't die, but the conversation they have afterwards makes him want to die even more than when he’d pushed himself beneath the surface of that water and breathed it in. 

“Quite the risky cry for attention,” Sherlock says, and Jim thinks, _ I can’t go on like this. Please, let me die. _

It felt like his whole being shattered the moment he heard the phrase ‘cry for attention’ leave Sherlock’s lips. So much so that he didn’t even try to argue. What was the point anymore?

\---

“Must you be so boring?” Sherlock asked. “You don’t _ do _anything. What’s the point of keeping you around if you’re just going to be boring?” 

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say much anymore. Not for a few weeks. John doesn’t get involved, but he seems to want to. Sherlock probably tells him to stay out of it. Has him convinced that Jim is still playing some sick game with them. 

Jim is present in the room, but it feels like he’s sitting inside his own skull, watching the proceedings through the screen of his eyes. 

Due to his lack of responsiveness, Sherlock probed for a reaction by invading his personal space. He strode uup to Jim and stuck his face in the criminal’s, observing up close for any kind of reaction at all. 

Jim looked up, met Sherlock’s eyes. His brain was screaming, _ understand me understand me understand me understand me _. 

So he leaned forward slightly and kissed the other. It was a stupidly spontaneous move, but very gentle. And it seemed that even a brain as quick as the detective’s had been stopped momntarily by the stupid spontenaety of it. 

_ Please just understand me _, Jim thought desperately, as he felt rather than saw Sherlock step away, eyes still closed. 

\---

“You’re not lying,” Sherlock said. 

It was early morning, a few days after the small incident, and it was the first word they’d exchanged in that time. 

“That’s all it took for you to realise? I’ve been telling you to believe me for months,” Jim muttered. 

“You’re…” the detective screwed up his face like the word was caught in his throat. 

“Say it,” Jim whispered bitterly. 

“You’re… hurt? You’re hurting. Feelings. They, uh.”

“Yeah,” Jim said quietly. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said. 

“Don’t,” Jim instructed, scowling. “Don’t be sorry. You gave me what I deserve; nothing more, nothing less. Don’t say you’re sorry.”

“What do you want from me, then? If not to apologise.”

“Just understand,” Jim whispered. “Just… understand.” 

There was a beat of silence. Sherlock placed his hand on Jim’s shoulder. Breathed in, out. He made eye contact, and held it. 

“Alright,” he said. “Yes. Alright.”

Things wouldn’t simply resolve themselves in a split second. Not like Jim wished. But if he was believed, then perhaps he could work his way towards finally, for the first time, being understood. Then it will be okay. Then. 

_'Cause it's hard to say what's real_  
_When you know the way you feel_  
_Is it wrong to think it's love_  
_When it tries the way it does?_

_Feeling a synthetic kind of love_  
_Dreaming a sympathetic wish_  
_As the lights blink faster and brighter_


End file.
